A few inches changes the world.

Monthly Archives: December 2015

I sat down to write a completely different blog tonight. But when I logged onto WordPress there was a comment waiting for me. Not from one of my amazing loyal readers, but from a troll. Not just any troll, but the woman who stalked me and threatened me after my then boyfriend broke up with me to be with her, whom he was cheating on me with. She stalked and threatened to have me raped after she successfully broke us up. Why?

And why would she, after a year has passed, still be trolling me? Still be reading my blog, following my Instagram and Facebook- and taking the time to write nasty things to me- why?

Which brings us to Taylor Swift, and the completely ridiculous backlash she has received because she has accumulated a posse of some seriously badass women. Women, who like herself, have risen to the top of their game. We should be celebrating this awesome group of friends. Women everywhere should be high-fiving each other, acknowledging what a fucking cool example Swift is, welcoming women into this circle of friends with truly endless potential. Doing what we all can do, what we all should do. Women are the greatest resource of untapped potential in the world. Instead she is met with ridicule and trolls doing what they do best, tearing others down so they don’t feel as diminished as they have made themselves.

I was at a Christmas Eve dinner tonight with one of my best friends. A woman who has been so much to me over the years: a mentor, a boss, a confidant, an older sister, an example, a kindred spirit. And I met yet another of her amazing posse of badass Baltimore women. I left that dinner buoyed by the love of my best friend and her family and friends; men and women who, while they do not agree on all things, respect and acknowledge each others’ worth. The way most Baltimore women behave towards each other is amazing. It is noteworthy. It is a page out of Taylor Swift’s book.

You can’t film a “Housewives of Baltimore” because not one of the women in Baltimore would sell out their friends. For one, we all have too much dirt on each other, but more importantly, we are a breed of woman who believes in climbing together rather than climbing over each other. We know that we reach higher heights when we build each other up instead of wasting time and energy tearing each other down. If you don’t know this about Baltimore women, you’re not one of us. But you can be.

The greatest women in Baltimore are people like Gina Geppi, Sloane Brown, and Jeanine Turner. Women who are never intimidated by other powerful women, but who are encouraged by the power they see in others. They don’t keep the next generation of powerful women out of their circles for fear they will be replaced, they mentor their replacements proudly, ensuring their mark on their city through the next generation of women.

If none of this sounds familiar to you, if you scoff at Taylor Swift and her growing universe of Amazons, if you’re thinking of snarky things to say about this sentence; you’re as hopeless as the woman who, a full year after she broke up my relationship is still so unhappy with herself that she continues to troll me (which just increases my views, of course) and wastes her time and exhausts herself coming up with mean shit to say. Why do that to yourself? Why waste yourself creating misery when you could be so much more, to yourself, to those around you, to the world?